SOPA, PIPA or whatever act or bill never mattered. They're slipping all kinds of stuff in the back door. Graduated Response is one of them and starting in July ISP's will be heavily monitoring your online activity...and guess who's in charge? The RIAA CEO, who else?

And there's nothing anyone can do about it. They decided to bypass laws or the government and just take the sh*t over. The internet take over is happening and looks like all we can do is watch.

They can say you downloaded something and turn off your internet and it's up to you to prove them wrong...same concept as SOPA which was: guilty until proven innocent. The abuse of power will be overwhelming considering the RIAA's history of insanity. Seems 2012 is turning out to be a another bad year.

-----------------------------------------------Last week, RIAA CEO Cary Sherman confirmed that the country's largest ISPs will voluntarily roll out by July 1 a "graduated response" program aimed at discouraging unauthorized downloading. A Memorandum of Understanding published last summer outlines the program, which was developed without user feedback. Under the new system, a rightsholder accusing an ISP subscriber of infringment will trigger a series of ever-increasing consequences. The responses are graduated in the sense that they escalate after each accusation, beginning with steps aimed at educating users about copyright and culminating in the Orwellian-sounding "mitigation measures" -- bandwidth throttling or account suspension.

As we said last year, this deal is tilted against subscribers. That's not surprising, given that no one solicited subscriber input in advance. In fact, some online commenters have expressed concern that the agreement runs afoul of antitrust law.

One key problem is the arrangement shifts the burden of proof: rather than accusers proving infringement before the graduated response process starts against a subscriber, the subscriber must disprove the accusation in order to call a halt to it. Worse, accused subscribers have to defend themselves on an uneven playing field. For example, they have only ten days to prepare a defense, and with only six pre-set options available. Of course, there's no assurance that those who review the cases are neutral, and the plan sorely lacks consequences for an accuser who makes mistaken or fraudulent claims.

There are still more problems. The plan calls for "education" after the first accusations, but based on the information now available on the website launched last year by the Center for Copyright Information (the entity charged with administering the system), it's likely to be both deceptive and scare-mongering. And the whole system lacks in transparency: while it includes some minimal reporting requirements, those reports need not be made public.

The final rub: subscribers will doubtless be paying for their own "re-education," as ISPs pass on their portions of the administration costs in the form of higher fees.

What can users do at this point? In some cases, they can vote with their feet. This agreement is voluntary for now, and while the participating ISPs include many major companies -- AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Cablevision, and Time Warner Cable -- there are other options. Users lucky enough to have a choice of providers for their Internet service should consider switching to a service that opted not to "cooperate." For example, companies like Sonic and Cox Communications have a history of fighting for their users where they can, and are notably absent from this arrangement.

Otherwise, users have little choice for now but to watch their ISP roll out this new system against their interests, and maybe familiarize themselves with the six pre-approved responses available to them after an accusation.

These are the guys that are behind this backdoor SOPA called "Graduated Response". The CEO of this insane group of idiots we all know called RIAA is going to be at the reigns of an attack on everyone's privacy directly through the big ISPs starting this July. This is even more nuts than SOPA. How can one crazy freak, who's head of a backassward company be in charge of monitoring what everyone is downloading and what happens to their internet.

I find it pretty strange why more people are not talking about this more than SOPA.

The RIAA really needs to go away. Here is another example of how insane they are.

You're telling me. To put that number into perspective (I bet a lot of you didn't even know "trillion" was a real number), the U.S. GDP is around 14 trillion -- less than one fifth of what the music industry is requesting. Heck, the GDP of the entire world is between 59 and 62 trillion. That's right, the music industry wants LimeWire to pay more money than exists in the entire world.

Popular file-sharing service LimeWire was shut down last October, after Judge Wood found them liable for copyright infringement in May 2010.

According to Law.com, the RIAA and the 13 record companies that are suing LimeWire for copyright infringement have demanded damages ranging from $400 billion to $75 trillion, and have claimed that Section 504(c)(1) of the Copyright Act allow them to request damages for each instance of infringement where two or more parties were liable. In other words, the RIAA thinks it should be entitled to damages not only for the individual works, but for every time that work was infringed (i.e. downloaded by another user).

At the moment, about 11,000 songs have been identified as "infringed" material, and each song has probably been downloaded thousands of times. The RIAA thinks it should be compensated for each individual download.

I don't know, this looks pretty damn crazy. Does anyone who uses the internet really want lunatics controlling who gets to have internet? We know how evil the RIAA is and how their abuse of power is going to get very ugly.

There are so many problems with this disturbing play of power and many people will probably start getting blocked from using the internet for no reason. What does the RIAA care about your internet and who gets blocked. They don't. Public places or businesses will probably stop offering free internet. No more internet in cafes, libraries or wherever. How can companies give away free internet when they might lose access to the internet after 6 so called downloads? Then what if someone's internet was used by someone else or hacked into (which happens all the time every day). Can the RIAA or whoever is actually watching your activity really know who is doing what in every single case where the internet is accessed? No. It's impossible and totally ridiculous. They only want to use their power to control everything.

-----------------------------------------Starting July 1, the nation’s largest Internet service providers (ISPs) have agreed to adopt a “Graduated Response” program intended to cut down on illegal file sharing. The program, colloquially known as the “six-strikes” system, is the brainchild of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) — the same industry groups that conjured up SOPA and PIPA. The system will affect millions of Internet users across the country. Whether you download your music and movies from the Internet or not, it is important for everyone to understand what the plan is, and how it could affect your life. Here is everything you need to know about “six-strikes.”

How does it work, in a nutshell?

Anytime copyright holders find that their content is being illegally downloaded, they will contact the participating ISPs. The ISPs will then send out an initial “copyright alert” to accounts linked to the alleged infringement. If a subscriber’s account continues to be linked to infringement, his or her ISP will send out up to four written notices, the natures of which are sometimes vague and varying. If the alleged infringement continues still, the ISP will then take “mitigation measures,” which include bandwidth throttling (i.e. slowing down the accused subscriber’s connection), or even temporarily cutting off full Web browsing abilities. In cases where alleged infringement persists after the initial mitigation measure, the subscriber may face lawsuits from the copyright holder, and/or have their Internet access cut entirely, in accordance with section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA).

Who is in charge of this system?

Administering “six strikes” is a new entity called the Center for Copyright Information (CCI), which was established by the entertainment industry and the ISP industry. (Internet users were not part of the negotiations.) The CCI will be governed by a six-person executive committee, made up of three representatives of the copyright industry, and three representatives of participating Internet service providers. There will also be a three-person advisory board, made up of people “from relevant subject matter and consumer interest communities,” who represent us, the Internet users, in all this. Though, from the looks of it, the advisory committee appears to be mostly ornamental.

The CCI develops the “educational material” part of the alerts, and develops a set of “best practices” for the copyright alerts system to abide by. According to the CCI’s FAQs, the CCI will also “benefit from guidance by consumer advocates and technical experts serving on its advisory committee or providing other expert services,” whatever that means.

Which ISPs are part of this plan?

The big ones. Those currently on board include AT&T, Cablevison, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon. Smaller, local ISPs are not yet included in the plan. But more may climb aboard by the time the plan sets sail this summer.

I agree. The MPAA and RIAA will probably only boost the economy in areas such as encryption, VPN, etc... The thing is, a lot of people want encryption anyway whether they are downloading something legal or illegal. Like a lot of people like to use proxies to do anonymous web browsing, not because they are searching for anything illegal, but because they'd just rather be anonymous. I know people that do anonymous browsing whenever they browse. It's normal to some people. It's really disturbing that the MPAA and RIAA are also trying to attack and shut down proxy services. I don't think people will let that happen but it will definitely be a fight since the MPAA/RIAA have so much money to burn on stupid sh*t. Hmm, where are they getting all this extra money to waste and pay politicians off with. Shouldn't that be a clue as to what's really going on? They must not be too concerned about loosing money.

I mean we all know that "pirating" is not hurting their industry in any way close to how they claim. Their numbers are obviously not within reality. The MPAA and RIAA will just continue to look like the fools and power hungry bastards that they are.

------------------------------------------------The MPAA and RIAA, helped by all the major Internet providers in the United States, will soon start to warn and punish copyright infringers. The entertainment industry hopes this will eliminate nearly all BitTorrent piracy. However, looking at the many options people have to escape being ‘caught’, it is doubtful whether the “six-strikes” plan will be very effective. In fact, the MPAA and RIAA may directly boost the revenues of VPN services and competing downloading platforms such as cyberlockers.

Starting this summer copyright holders will systematically hunt down ‘pirates’ and ISPs will inform account holders that their connections are being abused. It sounds scary, but in reality it’s not much different from what copyright holders are already doing.

The big change now is that there’s a formalized process under the name ‘copyright alerts‘. It basically boils down to a warning system that will notify people when their connection is suspected of being used for illegal file-sharing. After six warnings the ISP may then take a variety of repressive measures, which include disconnecting the offender’s connection temporarily.

The question remains, however, whether the plan will be effective.

While there will be significant numbers of individuals who will not even realize they are being monitored until they get their first warning, others will be more savvy from the start. Somewhere down the road the two groups are likely to converge and begin mulling some of the options available which remove the risk of receiving further warnings.

These users have plenty of options to avoid the warnings.

BitTorrent proxies and VPNs appear to be the preferred way for people to remain anonymous while downloading. As these services replace a user’s home IP-address with one provided by the proxy service, tracking companies won’t be able to identify who is doing the file-sharing meaning that no copyright alerts can be sent.

A recent survey in France, where Internet users can actually lose their connection after three strikes, revealed that only 4% of the polled file-sharers said they stopped pirating. Instead, many users signed up with proxies and VPNs to avoid detection.

TorrentFreak spoke to several owners of VPN services who all report a huge increase in clients in recent years, some of which can be directly linked to news about copyright enforcement efforts. It would therefore come as little surprise if their revenues grew even more after the “six-strikes” system is rolled out in the US.

And there is another type of business that will benefit from the MPAA/ RIAA anti-piracy plan. Since the alerts system only targets P2P file-sharing, which is pretty much limited to BitTorrent in the US, it means that people who use direct download sites won’t be affected.

Over the past several years one-click download sites, or cyberlockers as some call these services, have outgrown even the largest torrent sites by number of daily visitors. As with BitTorrent sites, sites like 4Shared, RapidShare and Hotfile are also used to share copyrighted material.

But despite their ever-increasing user bases, sharing on these sites can’t be tracked by third parties. This means that their users wont receive any strikes, ever. This also means that if BitTorrent users make the switch to using cyberlocker sites to avoid receiving warnings, revenues for these companies will go up.

Similar to one-click download sites, streaming portals are becoming more and more popular. Several streaming portals are indexing links to copyrighted movies and TV-shows and millions of people use these on a daily basis. Again, outsiders can’t legally spy on the users of these sites so they don’t have to be afraid of receiving a copyright alert.

The above is just the tip of the iceberg, and there are a range of other options for ‘pirates’ to get their daily fix and bypass the six-strikes system.

We’re not saying that the copyright alert system will have no effect whatsoever, in fact, it may be quite effective in deterring a small percentage of casual ‘pirates’. However, we expect that the overwhelming majority of copyright infringers will simply take measures to avoid being caught, while continuing their downloading habits.

Get ready, you're about to be spied on a lot more than before by your isp and there's nothing you can do about it. You're all guilty until proven guilty and this new "unlaw" is going to be abused by insane people. Stupidity at its greatest. Go by, pay a visit and say thanks to the RIAA and MPAA for creating this.

You better make sure your wireless networks are extremely secure, which wont help you against a good hacker. A lot of innocent people are going to be busted.

-------------------------------------------------If you download potentially copyrighted software, videos or music, your Internet service provider (ISP) has been watching, and they’re coming for you.

Specifically, they’re coming for you on Thursday, July 1.

That’s the date when the nation’s largest ISPs will all voluntarily implement a new anti-piracy plan that will engage network operators in the largest digital spying scheme in history, and see some users’ bandwidth completely cut off until they sign an agreement saying they will not download copyrighted materials.

Word of the start date has been largely kept secret since ISPs announced their plans last June. The deal was brokered by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), and coordinated by the Obama Administration. The same groups have weighed in heavily on controversial Internet policies around the world, with similar facilitation by the Obama’s Administration’s State Department.

The July 1 date was revealed by the RIAA’s CEO and top lobbyist, Cary Sherman, during a publishers’ conference on Wednesday in New York, according to technology publication CNet.

The content industries calls this scheme a “graduated response” plan, which will see Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and others spying on users’ Internet activities and watching for potential copyright infringement. Users who are “caught” infringing on a creator’s protected work can then be interrupted with a notice that piracy is forbidden by law and carries penalties of up to $150,000 per infringement, requiring the user to click through saying they understand the consequences before bandwidth is restored, and they could still be subject to copyright infringement lawsuits.

Participating ISPs have a range of options for dealing with customers who continue to pirate media, at that point: They can require that an alleged repeat offender undergo an educational course before their service is restored. They can utilize multiple warnings, restrict access to only certain major websites like Google, Facebook or a list of the top 200 sites going, reduce someone’s bandwidth to practically nothing and even share information on repeat offenders with competing ISPs, effectively creating a sort of Internet blacklist — although publicly, none of the network operators have agreed to “terminate” a customer’s service.

It is because of those reasons that the content industries believe this program achieves much more than what might have been possible in the realm of public policy, and the ISPs appear to agree. The voluntary scheme will be paid for mostly by the content industries, which will share some costs with the ISPs.

Not everyone sees it as a positive: The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights advocacy group, argued that the “graduated response” scheme lacks transparency, and that copyright holders could wield the network operators like a blunt instrument in cases where their claims may not be entirely valid — which is the biggest problem with statutes codified by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. They also pressed for assurances that claim reviews will be conducted by a neutral party, and suggested that users should be given some form of due process before their bandwidth is turned down or cut off entirely.

The EFF also took issue with the system of protest the program puts in place, which only gives users six predetermined “defenses” against a copyright claim. “And even the six enumerated defenses are incomplete,” they complained. “For example, the ‘public domain’ defense applies only if the work was created before 1923 — even though works created after 1923 can enter the public domain in a variety of ways.”

BACKGROUND: One day after the Internet staged a massive blackout to protest Congress's Internet censorship legislation (SOPA/PIPA), the United States responded by seizing millions of ordinary user files hosted on the popular website Megaupload.com.

With an aim of shutting down Megaupload and other Cloud-based hosting services (like Dropbox, YouTube or even your email provider), the government is trying to claim website operators should face decades in prison for the misdeeds of some of their users.

But while they pursue trumped up criminal charges against the companies' founders, they are shutting down dozens of websites, and leaving ordinary Internet users without any way of retrieving their files.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak called the case against Megaupload a "threat to innovation". Wozniak likened the Megaupload site to a highway and those who shared pirated movies and songs to speeding motorists.

"You don't just shut down the whole street because somebody is speeding," he said.

Numerous laws on the books already give copyright holders plenty of avenues to stop actual infringement, but that's not enough to satisfy Hollywood's lawyers and lobbyists.

And get this: The prosecutor in the case, Neil MacBride, previously served as the Anti-Piracy Vice President of the Business Software Alliance, where he represented the intellectual property interests of countless multinational corporations.

Now Hollywood's lobbyists, represented by the Motion Picture Association of America, want him to make it nearly impossible for ordinary Internet users to get their property back.

And please use these links or forward this email to urge your friends to get involved right away -- we need as many people as possible to sign on to the brief so that the judge understands the broad impacts of his decision.